User blog:Ibexgod/What would become of the dinosaurs? Part one: Ankylosaurs
One of the eternal questions of spec evo, one that has been covered in many projects, like the speculative dinosaur project, and by kaptainwombat, in the form of "What if the asteroid missed?". I would like to cover this, but will not create a project, instead I will summyrise my hypothised fate for each respective group in this post. As I a side note, thier fate doesn't look good. Also, on the aforementioned spec, I don't like what they did. The pterosaurs are gone, dinosaurs have lost no power, and the shift of power hasn't changed, all the same dinosaur groups have the same niches, and few went extinct. 'Now, on to the main point' The thereorans where only represneted by the ankylosaurs. We must figure out a)''their niche and ''b)''their diversity at the very end. 'What where those mouths used for? In their niche, the ankylosaurs where divided into two (or three?) groups, nodosaurs and akylosaurs proper, with polacanthids being a possible sepearate group fromm nodosaurs, but as they where extinct by the end anyway, it doesn't matter. If anky mouths have something notable about them, it's their wideness, obviously addapted to gather plant matter, and based on their posture/height, these wheren't trees. Angiosperms are also out, ankylosaurs evolved before those became successful. So what where they eating? Where they low browsers? Grazers? Something else entirely? A somewhat recent study gave the answer to this question. The study focused on the ecology of late cretaceous herbivorous megafauna, hadorsaurs, ceratopsians, and ankylosaurs. It divides the two groups, ecologically. The akylosaurs proper lived in drier, inland, and highland habitats, and where highly specialised toward ferns. This actually explains alot, they where successful throughout the latest jurrassic and all of the cretaceous. They never rose to dominence eother however. This specialisation was the reason, the ferns where succesful all throught the mesozoic, the ankylosaurs who tied with them ensured their survival, yet also cursed themselfs, specialised animals are on a time bomb, the eventually die off, and cannot rise to power easily. The nodosaurs on the other hand, where more generalised, eating ferns, as well some thouther plants. They where found in the swamps and lowlands along with hadrosaurs and cerotopsians. '''Their diversity? They appeared in the latest jurassic, when they where overshadowed by their relatives the stegosaurs. The, at the end of the jurassic, whne the stegosaurs went all but extinct, they themselfs rose into "power". But, not all was kept, polacanths, a group of either nodosaurs or their own thing, went extinct around the cenomonian-tunorian bounddry, thanks to the Creataceous Thermal Maximum, along many other groups of sauropsids. By the end, nodosaurs appear to have been dissapearing, while Edmontonia was still around in Hell Creek, they where almost gone. Aldo, I GIVE THIS WARNING: Africa, Appalacia (East north america), and Australia's late cretaceous fossil record is POORER THEN DIRT. Appalachia in particular seems to have been inhabited by the nodosaurs, based on intermidiate remains. Ankylosaurs on the other hand, where still doing well in N. america, and perhaps also Asia and even Europe. 'Back to the future' Back in the Cenozoic, as this is already far to long, ankylosaurs have a bleek future. As stated above, they where depedent on ferns, which wheren't as succesful in the cenozoic. They might acheive even success up through the Oligocene, but apon the spread of grass in the Miocene, the already decling ankylosaurs would meet the fate they witnessed back at their begings, when they replaced the stegosaurs. Their only chance would be currently unknown nodosaur diversity, and even then, suvival into the Holocene seems unlikely, Category:Blog posts